


The ominous red light of the recording

by Taniushka12



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Corporealization, Gen, Multi, Sasha James Lives, Season/Series 05, Spoilers For TMA 165, Tape Recorder Sasha Au/Theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:35:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24009712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taniushka12/pseuds/Taniushka12
Summary: Sasha James had her identity stolen and body killed, but her consciousness kept living on the tape recorders that plagued the Institute. Now that the world belongs to the Eye, and to her friend, she manages to come back.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Sasha James/Jonathan Sims, can be seen as platonic as well honestly but op ships them so ship tag it is
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	The ominous red light of the recording

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read the tapes recorder!sasha by tumblr user @equalseleventhirds then by all means [here](https://equalseleventhirds.tumblr.com/post/614299321832259584/and-nonsense-theory-2-which-is-actually-tori) [it](https://equalseleventhirds.tumblr.com/post/614939786382295040/i-know-i-know-its-not-gonna-happen-i-know-all) [is](https://equalseleventhirds.tumblr.com/post/614325314053652480/this-the-tape-recorders-are-sasha-theory-wont). I wrote this chapter quickly after ep 165 bc I love Sasha so much and I just want to have her back ;o;

It all started simple enough, with a slow increment of her name over the tapes that could so easily be attributed to Mere Coincidence sometimes, or maybe deliberate sadism from Whoever was sending them. Her name from someone else's mouth, her name speaking, her person speaking, her name which wasn't her person speaking her name, it all got very confusing after the fifth new tape, and some part of her was proud of Martin's scepticism.

—Jon, I think you should stop hearing those, what good is it making?

Yes, Martin, that would be a good idea _if she wasn't trying to say something_.

Jon took his advice, and wasn't it funny that now of all times he started doing that? Part of her was glad that he did, she didn't like hearing him so sad and he did sound sad whenever he heard her tapes.

Yes, Jon, please take care of yourself. But not when she was _desperately_ trying to **Say** something. Say something. A tape couldn't say anything, for it was a mere recorder, but Sasha, Sasha remembered ~~everything, she IS a recorder now, what else do they need to do?~~ saying words, a long long time ago in another place much different to their current landscape. But tapes couldn’t talk, they could simply repeat.

...

When Jon killed ~~her name her murdered her replacement her her her~~ the monster that stole her name and her life she felt like she could cry if she was still capable of, which she wasn't, tears of happiness and grief and all those things combined feeling like abstract concepts that once had any physical meaning, but now were simply recorded sounds repeating themselves.

Repeated sounds, and ideas. And a longing that never quite left.

It started simple enough with a few tapes popping into their pockets, turning on by themselves like the haunted little things they were, but as they started disposing of them she tried harder and louder. The apocalypse, she figured, wasn't beneficial only to the willing parts of Jon. After all wasn't she part of the so called "Eye" as well?

She tried harder and louder until she felt their stunned silence at the pile of tape recorders that should be in front of them. Repeating one single word with the voices of everyone that ever said it in the last couple of years.

Her name.

Her name. Her name. Her name. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. I'm. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Jon. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Martin. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Listen. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Pay attention. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Free. Me. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. Sasha. FREE. ME.

Stop.

Silence.

Silence without even the whirring of the tapes, she was too tired to run, and if it was possible for a pile of tape recorders to have a headache she would have it in that moment. Stunned silence even though the mumblings of Martin that she couldn't possibly understand in that moment, until the voice of Jon and the Archivist all the same repeated what she could distantly discern as a name, her name, with increasing volume.

There was hurried movement in the air, she could hear it, skin and plastic and metal rustling together and falling down and digging and voices and, static. Static? What did static mean again? Power or something on top of all the movement of the tapes and the fading voices behind. Static grew as the rustling and the falling and the human heat grew until it almost became too loud for her to bare.

A pained scream breached the static and she wished with all her might for it to stop, stop the static stop the loud noises that for some reason felt too close too personal too _there_. Stop the pain. The pain, the...

Pain. That was new, wasn't it? Or rather, that was old. She almost forgot what pain felt like.

The static started receding like waves and even then it felt different to its usual noise, different and muffled, and there was a curious warmth somewhere, some loud and unsteady thumps, pressure. Movement. The warmth stopped being so pronounced as the thumps stopped giving way to

Well, not silence, per se, they Were on the apocalypse, but somehow it felt... different. What Was that?

That was when she felt a prickling sensation and then, a voice, clearer than what it felt in years.

—...Sasha...?

The voice was weak, she could hear a vague tremor on it and she knew it was Jon's for the tone. She wondered vaguely where Martin was, hoping he would talk so she would get a clue of the scene, wondering vaguely if what she tried worked or not and how to improve it next time, from where that aching pain still kept pulsing through her... her, and what WAS that prickling sensation on her... eyes.

Eyes?

Tape recorders didn't have eyes, don't be stupid.

But...

Slowly, slower than life, she made a command in the same way she would to start recording, and bit by bit that prickling sensation stopped as she felt something move... on her? In her? Above? Inside? Muscle? Skin? Eye? Face? Light. Bright light suddenly burned and the prickling sensation came back as a pale darkness filled her vision and oh, Oh, OH, THAT meant something!

—...J...

What was that, were those teeth? Scarce breath on an unused pair of lungs? Ache on what once was a throat, collapsing on itself by the disuse. She took a deep shuddering breath and it hurt, it hurt, but that meant something, that meant something, she was _breathing_.

A voice, Martin's, asked something too fast and too quiet to get and with a snap she felt her head (ears, eyes, teeth, throat, _head_ , we're getting closer) focus on the noise, but it stopped as soon as it started. She could hear their breathing now, now that she wasn't focusing on the pain and on... her... she could make a vague image on her mind of where they were.

She took another deep breath, pushing the pain aside to brace herself to open her eyes again. Painful light, for a few seconds, blinking many times and actually feeling the beginning of tears due to the effort, painful strains on her eyes as she heard dubious laughter, as she heard _her **self**_ laughing as she saw these human shaped dark marks on a troubling background. She still couldn't quite fit faces nor clothes but she could discern the beginning of some shades of colors and THAT was more that she had for Years and-

—Sasha...? —This time Martin was the one speaking, and as she tried to fit his frame with her squinted eyes she realized they were closer than she pictured them, but flinched when one of their hands got closer to her range of newly found and still quite weak vision. He -she Thinks he was Jon, seeing the skinnier figure with darker skin contrasting with this taller, broader pale form she was pretty sure the one reaching for her was Jon, maybe. It has been so long- raised his palms up at the flinch.

—Sasha, —His voice still trembled a bit, but had some certainty on it—, it's okay. It's, It's us.

"Jon" She tried to mouth a couple of times to not avail, her lips too dry and her lungs too weak to make noise. The hand slowly fell down to her still raised hand besides her face and that was different, too, the still fervent memory of cold detachment when people simply picked ~~or gripped or threw~~ the recorder that less than a body felt a prison still heavy on her mind, so different to the warmth of skin and meat and blood and bone touching her own skin and meat and blood and bone (if everything went right, at least), so softly and yet so solid that she wondered if she could bleed from it.

She did not.

Her eyes hurt with the effort of wanting to open, wanting to see Him, Jon, Martin, the world, anything, Everything, but as that warmth travelled to her shoulder and with shuddering touch held her face she finally relaxed a bit, and as Jon held tightly to her on a hug she closed her eyes.

Now she Did have a literal headache, but it didn't matter, as she heard the disembodied yet Solid and Real voices of Jon first and followed by Martin as they talked or shouted to each other in excitement and, she didn't know that Jon could hug so tightly, so heartfelt, wet sounds rolling down his mouth in what she imagined were tears. In no time another pair of hands carefully touched her shoulder for one second, before another shape hugged her, them, tightly enough that she almost stopped breathing. It was almost too much, too sudden, but instead of thinking that she found herself laughing shakily as warm tears fell down her own face.

Her hands and much less her arms still felt detached, but she did feel the warmth of both their bodies as she clung to them. Laughter and crying filled the horror driven air as her mind closely catalogued every new rediscovered feeling; the fabric of their clothes, the hair of Jon's head or Martin's arm, Jon’s glasses on her skin, Jon's arms wrapped around her back and his head on her shoulder and Martin pressed against her back and hiding his face on her hair. She didn't have to imagine the scene, for she was Feeling it, she was There.

Sasha James, the real one this time, was alive. And she was back.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know when I'll be able to post the other two chapters bc this one drained all my inspo but... expect more character interaction, some sad body funks and Beholding Stuff™ whenever that might be :)
> 
> Also I drew the hug from the last scene [here](https://tanis-drawings-2point0.tumblr.com/post/617231851477778432/id-two-different-images-featuring-sasha-james-a) bc I love them <3
> 
> Hope you liked it!! Comments are encouraged :D
> 
> //EDIT: While originally written as the first chapter of a fic I don't know if I'll write more tma stuff on the future so I'm keeping this as a one shot u_u. If I ever finish the third & fourth chapters ill make a series but until then hope you liked this :')


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